SA members in Washington, D.C., are celebrating the 25th anniversary of an SA meeting that opened its doors in November, 1991, and has met weekly at the same location ever since, Capitol Hill United Methodist (CHUM). Members are grateful for the Friday evening meeting that sets a spiritual tone at the end of the work week with the SA program and Steps. These SA evening meetings initially benefited from clergy required to attend as part of a nearby residential addiction treatment facility. The clergy worked the SA Program conscientiously. They gave First Steps, got sponsors, participated at all levels of service, and stayed sober. We relied on them to open the meeting on time, set up the literature and facilitate the meeting. They no longer attend, and dwindling membership at the CHUM meeting and at other Washington, D.C., meetings has group members taking meeting health inventory. Even at 25 years, the CHUM meeting is the youngest evening SA meeting in the city. Two of these evening meetings date to the mid-1980s. All have decreased attendance in recent years.
Much of the meeting inventory has centered on what amount of time and energy sober SAs should expend in trying to keep struggling meetings alive. Meeting attendance is God’s issue, not ours, some argue. Efforts to keep the doors open can be seen as a form of promotion or control. Moreover, meeting attendance is determined by changing demographics. This may no longer favor evening meetings in urban areas.
Truth be told, some of us would like to see certain SA meetings go dark. Then we could attend meetings that are supported by well-motivated members. Letting struggling meetings die a natural death would also eliminate the risk of newcomers finding their way into SA meetings that have few or no sober members and perhaps mistaking insobriety to be standard SA.
On the other hand, how do we claim knowledge of God’s will if we haven’t tried everything? Is there something we haven’t tried?
Members who no longer support evening meetings in D.C. have not abandoned SA. Meetings have opened in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. These new meetings model healthy growth from the inside out, maturing as they grow in numbers, in sobriety, and in adherence to the Steps and Traditions.
Here’s where the “Renaissance” comes in. Members are asking if we can make projects of the ailing meetings? Perhaps our Intergroup could Adopt-a-Meeting? If meetings are “the hospital beds of SA,” can we capitalize on the existing facilities and church relationships? Sober members could pay “sick calls” on ailing meetings, just as we visit hospitals and institutions. Two or more members with comfortable sobriety attending a meeting can share with newer members or sponsees their experience with opening and leading meetings, sharing about performing Step work, and how a Twelfth Step call is done. If sober members could help ailing meetings get back to basics, they might revive the meetings — and in the same effort support their own recovery.
Letting SA meetings go dark in our nation’s capital should be as unthinkable as the prospect of an AA meeting in the Bowery closing for lack of interest, or a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Las Vegas going dark. With a little willingness and organization, low attendance could be used to our advantage, and possibly even overturned.
Lawrence M., Virginia
